


The Needle and The Damage Done

by blackmountainbones



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: 1990s to present, Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Angst, Drugs, Heroin, M/M, New York City, drug overdose, no one dies but there's
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-10
Updated: 2017-08-10
Packaged: 2018-12-13 12:07:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11759523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackmountainbones/pseuds/blackmountainbones
Summary: Yuri was on his way home from the club, crossing the Gowanus Canal in a pair of cheap flip-flops and holding his heels in his hands, when he saw it: a pale hand clutching the railing on the opposite side of the pedestrian bridge that crossed the canal. It was stark and white in the darkness, bloodless like something no longer alive.





	The Needle and The Damage Done

**Author's Note:**

> disclaimer: i am not, nor have i ever been, a user of hard drugs. however, heroin has affected the lives of people i love deeply. be warned, the author is using fic as therapy again. 
> 
> i was not sure if i would ever post this fic, but this 'verse has taken hold of me and will not let go.... i keep sitting down to work on my other WIPs only to write random scenes from this 'verse. hopefully posting this will either get this out of my system, or help motivate me to develop all the bits and pieces i have left over into a meaningful narrative.
> 
> thank you to [jellyfish_tacos](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Jellyfish_Tacos/pseuds/Jellyfish_Tacos), [francowitch](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Francowitch/pseuds/Francowitch), [theinsanefox](http://archiveofourown.org/users/TheInsaneFox/pseuds/TheInsaneFox), [muspell](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Muspell/pseuds/Muspell), & [kinoglowworm](http://archiveofourown.org/users/KinoGlowWorm/pseuds/KinoGlowWorm) for the beta work and the encouragement. i never would have been brave enough to post this without your support.

Yuri was on his way home from the club, crossing the Gowanus Canal in a pair of cheap flip-flops and holding his heels in his hands, when he saw it: a pale hand clutching the railing on the opposite side of the pedestrian bridge that crossed the canal. It was stark and white in the darkness, bloodless like something no longer alive.

Yuri stopped short. This block, lined with autobody chop shops and light industry was far from the best block in Bushwick. His first impulse was to keep walking--he was half-drunk, tired from dancing for hours at the club, and the last thing he needed was to be questioned by the cops for calling in a severed hand. It was better not to get involved, so he kept his head down and looked at his feet as he walked on.

He didn’t get far before his conscience got the better of him. Yuri could hear his grandfather’s disappointment echoing in his head in thickly-accented English: _This is not how I raised you, Yurotchka._ Yuri sighed and turned around, walking back to the pedestrian bridge. He crossed the street.

From this angle, it was obvious that the hand was attached to an arm--and the arm attached to a man who was lying facedown in the street, legs crumpled awkwardly beneath him. The hand and arm clutching the railing were blue and bloodless, twisted at an awkward angle. It seemed as though the man had grabbed at the railing to keep himself from going down, yet the effort had been futile. His face rested in the gutter, and it was obvious that he’d been lying here for awhile; though Yuri could not see his face, it was red with blood.

Yuri sighed, and reached for his phone. Normally, he preferred not to flaunt his brand-new Iphone 7 in this neighborhood, but this was a literal emergency. The screen flicked to life, and Yuri dialed emergency services. It didn’t even take a full ring before the operator answered.

“911, what is your emergency?” a gruff female voice with a deep Brooklyn accent asked.

“Hi, um....” Yuri paused, unsure what to say. “There’s a guy collapsed in the street.”

“Is he alive? Is he breathing?”

“Um, I’m not sure.” Yuri gazed at the man in the street, who did not move.

The operator clicked her tongue. “Can you check?”

The hair on Yuri’s arms stood up. He was alone on a desolate block in a bad neighborhood, a small, effeminate man to boot. He really didn’t want to get any closer than necessary, just in case.... He’d grown up in Brooklyn; he knew what happened to gay little boys who didn’t mind their own business.

But Yuri swallowed. He ignored the way his heart was racing in his chest and took a deep breath, then crouched down next to the man. This close, it was evident that he was much younger than Yuri had expected. The clothes, though dirty and threadbare, were trendy and branded with the logo of a popular indie design company.

He nudged the bloodless arm, waiting for a response from the man, who remained motionless. This close, he could see the two bruised puncture marks just below the elbow, one of them angry and infected-looking. Great, the guy was just another junkie...

“Sir? Is he breathing?” the operator asked.

“One minute. I have to put the phone down,” Yuri murmured. He hit speaker then balanced the phone carefully on the the curb, reaching a tentative hand out to cup the man’s nose and mouth.

It was faint, but he could feel the man’s damp, slow breath on his palm. “He’s breathing,” Yuri spoke into the phone.

“What is the address?” the operator asked.

Yuri looked around. Though a row of warehouse lurked down the block, no street numbers were visible so he tried his best to describe the location. “Um, there is no address? I’m on the Grand Street Bridge, on the northeast side, closer to Ridgewood?”

The woman made a humming sound, something in the background clicking. “I’ll need an address, sir.”

Yuri lost his patience. “I told you, there is no address! I’m on the goddamned Grand Avenue pedestrian bridge in Brooklyn--the northeast corner, just like I said.”

The operator sighed. “Are there any landmarks? Nearby businesses?”

Yuri looked around.  “I think there’s an autobody shop across the street?” He turned his head, squinting for a sign. “Del Pietro Tire?”

“Del Pietro Tire at 595 Grand Avenue, Bushwick?”

“We’re across the street. On the northeast corner of the bridge,” Yuri repeated.

“Copy,” the woman said. “Keep an eye out for the fire department. The EMTs should follow shortly. I’ll stay on the phone with you until they arrive.”

Suddenly, a car came tearing over the bridge at high speed, missing the man in the street by only inches. The people inside were yelling and hollering, either completely fucked up or mocking the man in the road, and Yuri cursed.

He put his phone down once more. First, he unravelled the fingers from where they clutched the railing; they opened easily, one by one. Yuri was unprepared for they way the arm swung down, limp but with enough momentum to smack against the cement loudly.

Yuri winced. Steeling himself, he tucked his hands in the man’s armpits to yank him out of the street. Though he was small and thin, the unconscious man was a dead weight, and Yuri, not-quite-sober, almost lost his balance. In an attempt to balance himself, he pulled the man closer as he dragged him onto the sidewalk, and the man’s head rolled back as he did so. His eyes flickered open for a moment, and he looked up at Yuri with a glassy gaze.

It was the first chance Yuri had had to look at the man, and he gasped-- _No, it couldn’t be--_

He nearly dropped the man in shock. Yuri _recognized_ that face: he was thinner, the strong jaw much more prominent, the bags under his eyes dark as a bruise, but the man he’d yanked out of the street was none other than Otabek Altin, his childhood best friend, his high school sweetheart. They hadn’t talked in years.

He collected himself, arranging Otabek so that he was sitting up, leaning against the railing for support. His chin was tucked into his chest, his eyes closed--Yuri could almost believe that the last three years had not passed.

“Shit,” Yuri cursed, forgetting that the operator was still on the line.

“Is everything OK, sir? Is he still breathing?”

Yuri checked, just to be sure. “Yeah, he’s--he’s OK. Sorry. I just--I was moving him out of the street, and I almost dropped him.”

The operator said something else, but Yuri wasn’t listening. He was too busy looking at Otabek. Half of Yuri believed that if he looked away, even if only for a moment, Otabek would disappear once more.

It was surreal to meet like this, after so many years of separation. The two had been friends since they were toddlers, having grown up on the same block of shabby apartment buildings in Coney Island nestled between the highway and the boardwalk. The kind of block where all the old babushkas and dedushkas would sit in the courtyard for hours in those cheap folding aluminum beach chairs with woven fabric straps that left red marks on your thighs.

The Coney Island in which he and Otabek had grown up had been far from the beachfront wonderland of its heyday. Many of the attractions on the boardwalk had been shuttered, and they lurked at the water’s edge like graffitied monoliths, silent, unmoving. Similarly, numerous business had been shuttered, giving the whole neighborhood the atmosphere of a city that had been bombed by enemy artillery and left to ruin.

They’d spent their childhood in the alleys and abandoned buildings of Brooklyn, two children who fit together perfectly despite never having quite fit anywhere: Otabek had been a sickly child, too smart for his own good, socially awkward and coddled by his overprotective parents; Yuri the little girly boy, the ballet dancer, who’d learned to use his words to inflict the damages his fists could not. It had seemed inevitable when they’d started dating in high school: they’d spent most of their young lives curled one around the other. The idea of living without Otabek had been absolutely unfathomable until it became a reality.

Yet Yuri hadn't spoken to Otabek in three years--almost four. After fifteen years as best friends and six years as boyfriends, when forced to choose between Yuri and his drug of choice, Otabek had chosen heroin. And the heroin had been hungry--it had devoured the man, emptying him out until the only thing left was an endless craving for the junk.

The operator was giving him updates on the status of the paramedics, but Yuri wasn’t listening. He’d lost his footing in the present, adrift in memory: Otabek at eight years old, playing Super Mario Brothers on his ancient SNES, sitting cross-legged on the threadbare carpet of his living room. Otabek at thirteen, sneaking cigarettes from his parents to share with Yuri at the abandoned playground on Avenue X. Otabek at sixteen, getting his hair cut into his signature undercut for the first time.... No matter how much time had passed, Otabek would always be Yuri’s first love. They had shared so many happy memories: first crushes, first kisses, and first times.

Yet, after Otabek’s motorcycle accident, the memories took on a darker tone. After all, he had never fucked around with painkillers before shattering his hip. And once he’d gotten hooked on the painkillers, the heroin had soon followed.

Yuri’s very last memory of Otabek was of Otabek walking away, moving out of the apartment they’d shared for two years. Everything Otabek owned had fit into two suitcases that trailed behind him, all valuables long since pawned. In the years since, Yuri had learned to live without Otabek beside him--he’d thought he’d gotten over it, but nothing could have prepared him for this: this scrawny, pale man seemed like a ghost, only the kind of ghost that haunted someone still living.

His reverie was broken by the sound of sirens, shrill and shrieking. The flashing lights stained everything orange, and Yuri stood up, slowly stepping to his feet.

“Sir?” the operator said. “The paramedics should be arriving...”

Yuri waved to the ambulance, which veered toward him sharply. “I see them.”

The operator said goodbye, then hung up. Yuri pocketed his phone as the vehicle parked; an EMT jumped out of the passenger’s seat, towing a bulky black bag.

She ran right over to Otabek, fumbling in her bag for a syringe and a small glass vial, then cracked open the seal of the bottle, drawing the liquid up into the syringe, then plunging it into the withered muscle of Otabek’s shoulder.

For a few tense seconds, Otabek remained unresponsive. The second EMT raced over as the first fumbled for another vial of Naloxone, dropping it in haste. The small glass bottle shattered; just as she was preparing the second shot, Otabek’s eyes blinked open.

He shook his head groggily as the second paramedic tried to lift him to his feet. Otabek’s legs wobbled, then collapsed. “I’m going to get the gurney,” the EMT  said, turning to his partner before heading back to the ambulance.

Otabek’s head nodded forward, eyes still fuzzy and unfocused. Yuri watched as the paramedics lifted him onto the stretcher. His limbs were limp and useless, and his eyes remained blank as though they saw nothing.

As they were loading the gurney onto the ambulance, a police vehicle arrived on the scene with flashing lights and sirens. Otabek suddenly snapped to awareness, sitting up in the stretcher and shaking his head as the officers exited the vehicle, body drawn utterly tense with panic.

One of the paramedics stepped between Otabek and the cops. “Sorry, officers, but we’re going to have to ask you to take a step back on this one.”

The tall cop looked down at his shorter partner, lips drawn tight. Yuri could tell he didn’t like what the paramedic had said, but his partner simply nodded and the man stood obediently aside.

Yuri remained on the scene, unable to do anything more than watch it unfolding. He had no idea what happened next in these situations. Even though he’d seen Otabek high hundreds of times, he’d never before witnessed an overdose. Absently, he wondered how many times this had happened. Somehow, he was certain that it had not been the first.

Something in Yuri broke at that moment. Three years had done little to diminish the pain, the anger, and of course the heartbreak he’d felt when Otabek had packed his belongings into his shitty van and given Yuri his keys, slamming the door of their shared apartment shut behind him.

Yuri had watched him out the window of their former bedroom as he’d fumbled with his car keys, dropping them onto the pavement. He couldn’t hear Otabek’s curse as he squatted to retrieve them from below the car, but he could see the shape of it on his lips. _Blyad._

As Otabek stood back up, he had spared a single inscrutable glance back at the apartment. Yuri had waited until he closed the car door behind him, then shut the curtains. He didn’t want to watch Otabek leave him behind as he drove into his new life, a life without Yuri. Yuri was his past, and heroin was his future.

Even then, Yuri hadn’t imagined this: Otabek literally passed out in the gutter, grabbing onto the handrail of the bridge like it was the single anchor he could find, unwilling to let go even though he’d been unconscious. It reeked of a symbolism Yuri didn’t want to consider, and he let out a deep, quavering breath, blinking rapidly.

The tall officer turned to face him. “Do you know him?” the cop asked.

Yuri almost said _I used to_. “No.” It was almost the truth.

They watched the paramedics load Otabek into the van. Right before the door closed, the paramedic said something to Otabek. When Otabek turned to answer, he made eye contact with Yuri, and his eyes went wide in something halfway between terror and astonishment.

Yuri was thankful when the other paramedic closed the door and walked into the cab. His eyes were hot and he did not know if he was going to be able to keep himself from crying for much longer. The ambulance roared to life and drove off, sirens blaring.

“You saved a life tonight, kid.”

It took Yuri a moment to realize the hoarse voice belonged to the shorter officer, who was watching him intently. The officer shook his head and coughed, an ugly, phlegmy sound. “Young guy, too. It never gets easier, seeing someone lose themselves to the needle like that.”

Yuri let out a breath that was almost a sob. “Yeah.”

“C’mon, kiddo, where do you live? This is a shit neighborhood to be walking alone so late at night,” the taller cop said gruffly.

Yuri knew how he looked in his tight pants and sequined top--like another fucking hipster. But he’d grown up in Coney Island at the tail end of the crack era. He could keep himself safe on the streets. He’d been doing it his whole life, after all.

It had always been Otabek who he couldn’t save. Well, Yuri supposed that he’d finally saved him this time, yet he couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling that it would be single victorious battle in a losing war.

But it was late, and an Uber would be expensive this time of night, so Yuri accepted the ride. He was silent the whole time, even when the officers lectured him about the dangers of walking alone at this time of night in a neighborhood like Bushwick. He was too tired to care.

 

 

When he got upstairs, he brushed his anxious cats away from his legs. They mewed pitifully, and he opened a can of food to distract them although he’d fed them dinner before he’d headed to the club.

At the side bed was a large metal trunk, a tarnished monstrosity he’d owned for years. It served as a makeshift nightstand, cluttered with jewelry and books and empty candy wrappers, and Yuri sat on the floor and set about clearing the trunk. Once he’d finally piled all the junk onto the floor, he took a deep breath and opened the lid.

The trunk was full of photographs and keepsakes, all the years of his past musty with the smell of dust and old paper. Yuri reached for the large, leather-bound photo album that sat on top of the haphazardly-piled items.

He opened the album, with a shaking hand. The very first picture was an 8x10 black and white photo that Yuri had printed in the darkroom during his freshman year of college: he and Otabek embracing as they perched on the rooftop ledge of the abandoned Domino Sugar Factory on the East River, the lower Manhattan skyline rising proud and distinctive behind them.

Yuri looked down at the photograph. He almost reached out to caress the lines of Otabek’s cheekbones, a soft smile on his usually-severe mouth as he looked down at Yuri with worship in his eyes. They’d been impossibly young, and impossibly in love. Just like the real estate bubble, and communism, and other impossible things, it had to collapse eventually.

The tear took him by surprise when it fell onto the surface of the photograph. His hands did not stop shaking when he used the hem of his shirt to wipe it clean, scratching the emulsion on Otabek’s face a bit as he did so. The effect was jarring, as though Otabek was slowly fading back into a ghost before Yuri’s eyes.

Yuri shut the album with a slam. But instead of tossing it back into the trunk, he tossed it onto the bed. Even if he could not bear to look at the album, he was comforted by having it close.

One of his cats, the dumb fluffy white one, jumped up onto the bed with a soft meow. She immediately rolled onto her back to expose her belly, purring with satisfaction when Yuri lay down next to her and grabbed her into a full-body cuddle. Out of their three cats, Puma Tiger Scorpion had always been Otabek’s favorite.

With a sob, Yuri buried his face into his cat’s soft belly, and finally let himself cry. Even after his tears had dried up, he was unable to shake the feeling that he had seen a ghost.  Yet Yuri had no idea who you were supposed to call to exorcise the spirit of someone still alive. Maybe the heroin would do the job for him eventually.

**Author's Note:**

> sooo... i have no idea what i'm doing with this fic. i'm posting this as a oneshot, just to gauge interest and see if it's worth continuing. i may leave it as is, or continue it as a series of fics rather than a single longfic. let the muse and i know what you think.


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